Category Archives: demographics

Somaticizing your people’s trauma

I heard a very insightful discussion (between therapist and trauma specialist Resmaa Menakem and Kritsta Tippett) of the deep bodily harm racism inflicts, on a cellular level. Menakem describes how the subjects of racist attention are born inheriting, in their bodies, the stress their mothers felt while carrying them in their wombs. It made a lot of sense to me, the innate vigilant tension that must be carried in the body by those who society marks, solely by their external appearance, as inferior and threatening.

Menakem makes this profound point:

Not just that they lived through trauma, but that the angst and the anguish was decontextualized. And so for my Black body to be born into a society by which the white body is the standard is, in and of itself, traumatizing. If my mom is born as a Black woman, into a society that predicates her body as deviant, the amount of cortisol that is in her nervous system when I’m being born is teaching my nervous system something. Trauma decontextualized in a person looks like personality. Trauma decontextualized in a family looks like family traits. Trauma in a people looks like culture.

source

I immediately knew the truth of this. I thought of my advantage, as a white person raised in safety by white middle class parents [1], when an off-duty cop tried to punch my face in for a disrespectful remark I’d made to him. (In my defense, I had no idea the violent piece of shit was an off-duty cop.) When three of his colleagues finally pulled us apart, two pinned my arms. I immediately relaxed my body, signaling to them I was not resisting, that I was calm, that they could safely let me go, which I quietly asked them to do.

Had my body been programmed to tense up and resist, knowing in my ancestral memory that the next likely thing was for all four of them to start beating me, or worse, I’d never have been able to relax and free myself so easily. I’d never have had the chance to reasonably ask the guy who’d tried to punch me in the face over and over what was stopping me from doing the same to him, then doing it, in front of three witnesses, and making my exit without having the shit beaten out of me afterwards.

The trauma of growing up in a despised, feared group is somaticized, it becomes part of the body’s response system (making the body more susceptible to disease and early death, among other things [2]). Not surprising at all, once it’s put out there, but fascinating and important to consider. The inherited, instinctive fight or flight mobilization in traumatized bodies can also be described by epigenetics, which Krista Tippett also did a great show about.

The new field of epigenetics sees that genes can be turned on and off and expressed differently through changes in environment and behavior. Rachel Yehuda is a pioneer in understanding how the effects of stress and trauma can transmit biologically, beyond cataclysmic events, to the next generation. She has studied the children of Holocaust survivors and of pregnant women who survived the 9/11 attacks. But her science is a form of power for flourishing beyond the traumas large and small that mark each of our lives and those of our families and communities.

source

These biological expressions of stress and trauma can be worked through by survivors who receive help and support, once the traumatic events are far enough in the past. But what of those whose stress and trauma are ongoing, systemic, unending, in the news every single day?

In the context of now daily police killings of unarmed Black people, this dynamic is very important to consider. The day after Derek Chauvin was convicted, unarmed, unresisting Andrew Brown was, shot to death in a rural county in eastern North Carolina. The warrant for his arrest called him a dangerous drug dealer and the unidentified sheriff’s deputies who went to serve the warrant on him wound up killing him. According to the officers who shot him, the proof that he was resisting arrest is that once they began shooting into his car, and four shots are confirmed to have hit him, he tried to drive away, attempting to back down his driveway, which seems to have been when the fatal fifth shot was fired into the back of his head.

Ask yourself how a Black man, even if he is not a “dangerous drug dealer”, does not try to flee from police bullets coming into his car, particularly after he has complied and kept both hands on the steering wheel.

Recall the original police account of the murder of George Floyd: “Man Dies After Medical Incident During Police Interaction.” We know now, thanks to the video shot by a courageous seventeen year-old, the testimony of several witnesses, police officials and medical experts, and the guilty verdict by a jury of twelve of Derek Chauvin’s peers, that the original police account, while strictly true (there was a “medical incident” but it was Floyd’s murder) was a grossly misleading oversimplification of what happened during those fatal final nine and a half minutes of the “police interaction” that ended George Floyd’s life.

Makes me want to holler, it really does.

I’ve been reminded that most people who become police officers, the vast majority of them “white,” grow up with a conservative mindset, conforming to the norms of our society and believing in a basic code of right and wrong based on enforcing the law, whatever it is, against lawbreakers. I believe many, if not most, are motivated to become police officers by a real desire to protect and serve. The burning, killing question is who and what, exactly, you have vowed to protect and serve.

[1]

Leaving aside my own epigenetic trauma to be the child of parents who lost all but a few family members, every single family member left in Europe, to an outbreak of murderous group madness in Ukraine and Belarus in 1942 and 1943. Every one of them murdered and disappeared without a trace, just thirteen years before I was born. Try as I might, it is something I can never get out of my head, or my body, I suppose, though my own experience never included anything like the killing crews that were the last thing my grandparents’ family members ever saw.

[2]

For a very short description, see also, HERE.

Come on, man!

from today’s NY Times

United States

population: 328.2 million (2019) per capita income: $53,240

India

population: 1.353 billion (2018) per capita income: $1,900

Brazil

population: 209.5 million (2018) per capita income: $10,400

incidence of infection:

USA — one in 17 Americans (more than a 5% infection rate, and steadily rising)

India — one in 132 Indians (less than 1%)

Brazil — one in 156 Brazilians (less than 1%)

As we can plainly see, the country with the greatest wealth and the most liberty, once again leads the world in freedom, justice, health, safety, patriotism, nationalism and everything of value. USA! USA!!! And if you don’t believe it — go defund yourself!!! “Facts”? Go fact check yourself, pencil neck!!!

Reality Check, maybe

The world’s single nation record for COVID-19 infections in a day was set not long after the presidential election. The NY Times reported:

A little more than a week earlier we’d broken the 100,000 case a day barrier (and they said it couldn’t be done!). I attribute this shattered record to all the contact, all over the US, that resulted from the Trump/Kremlin lie that mail-in ballots were tickets to widespread fraud and all the propaganda and Republican voter suppression that sent millions to stand on lines to cast vote in person. In places like Texas, poll workers were not required to wear masks and they could force voters to take off their masks in order to vote. Freedom, you know…

Today we nonchalantly eclipsed that sad-ass record again with a non-record 207,000 new cases (and an impressive 2,259 deaths from COVID, not a record but nothing to sneeze at!)

Check out this graph and think of how hard this dangerous, lying child, our Winner-in-chief, is still fighting to make this skyrocketing mass death on his heedless watch simply go away as he scrambles, hideous as a late stage Roy Cohn, to avoid all responsibility for anything in his long, narcissistic life of unlearned lessons.

During the years of the Cheney/Bush administration the octogenarian mother of a friend showed up at dinner one night sporting a BUCK FUSH button. Right on, sister! TRUCK FUMP!

The so-called truth about the so-called election (as of yesterday, anyway)

Clicking links can be tedious, I know. So, as a service to the reader in a hurry, a few highlights from the traitorous Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s website (as of yesterday — subject to deletion upon discovery by the president’s most loyal men and women). All this information is apparently still online today.

You can click on the CISA website’s URL HERE for more details about each of these thoroughly debunked rumors/Trump barking points. Most of these debunked rumors have useful resources below including links to the laws and practices that protect and ensure each of these things. A quick scroll through this list should probably do the trick, though.

Or, as is your inalienable right as an American anti-masker type, simply ignore this seditious “reality-based” list, as millions of our other countrymen, including 18 state attorneys general and 106 House members, are currently on the record doing (though in the guise of a lawsuit on other grounds not covered here).

 Reality: Ballot handling procedures protect against intentional or unintentional ballot destruction.

  Rumor: Ballots can easily be destroyed without detection, preventing them from being counted.

 Reality: Voting systems undergo testing from state and/or federal voting system testing programs, which certify voting system hardware and software.

  Rumor: Voting system software is not reviewed or tested and can be easily manipulated.

POST-ELECTION

 Reality: Robust safeguards including canvassing and auditing procedures help ensure the accuracy of official election results.

  Rumor: A bad actor could change election results without detection.


 Reality: Voter registration list maintenance and other election integrity measures protect against voting illegally on behalf of deceased individuals.

  Rumor: Votes are being cast on behalf of dead people and these votes are being counted.

 Reality: Variations in vote totals for different contests on the same ballot occur in every election and do not by themselves indicate fraud or issues with voting technology.

  Rumor: More votes in one contest than other contests on the ballot means that results cannot be trusted.

 Reality: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) do not design or audit ballots, which are processes managed by state and local election officials.

  Rumor: DHS or CISA printed paper ballots with security measures and is auditing results as a countermeasure against ballot counterfeiting.


 Reality: Election results reporting may occur more slowly than prior years. This does not indicate there is any problem with the counting process or results. Official results are not certified until all validly cast ballots have been counted, including ballots that are counted after election night.

  Rumor: If results as reported on election night change over the ensuing days or weeks, the process is hacked or compromised, so I can’t trust the results.

 Reality: Provisional ballots are counted in every election regardless of result margins.

  Rumor: Provisional ballots are only counted if there’s a close race.

 Reality: In some circumstances, elections officials are permitted to “duplicate” or otherwise further mark cast ballots to ensure they can be properly counted.

  Rumor: Witnessing election officials marking ballots means that fraudulent voting is taking place.

 Reality: Election night results are not official results.

  Rumor: If election night reporting sites experience an outage, vote counts will be lost or manipulated.

 Reality: A defaced or manipulated election night reporting webpage would not impact counting and certification of official results.

  Rumor: If the election night reporting webpage is defaced or displays incorrect results, the integrity of the election is compromised.

 Reality: Malicious actors can use fake personas and impersonate real accounts.

  Rumor: If a social media account claims an identity, the account must be run by that person or organization.

 Reality: Cyber actors can “spoof” or forge email sender addresses to look like they come from someone else.

  Rumor: I received an election-related email that looks like it came from a certain organization, so the organization must have sent it.

PRE-ELECTION

 Reality: Some voter registration data is publicly available.

  Rumor: Someone possessing or posting voter registration data means voter registration databases have been hacked.

 Reality: Online voter registration websites can experience outages for non-malicious reasons.

  Rumor: An online voter registration website experiences an outage and claims are made the election has been compromised.

 Reality: A compromise of a state or local government system does not necessarily mean election infrastructure or the integrity of your vote has been compromised.

  Rumor: If state or local jurisdiction information technology (IT) has been compromised, the election results cannot be trusted.

 Reality: Malicious actors can fake manipulation of voter registration data to spread disinformation.

  Rumor: Videos, images or emails suggesting voter registration information is being manipulated means voters will not be able to vote.

 Reality: Safeguards are in place to prevent home-printed or photocopied mail-in ballots from being counted.

  Rumor: A malicious actor can easily defraud an election by printing and sending in extra mail-in ballots.

Reality: Safeguards are in place to protect against fraudulent voting using the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB).

  Rumor: A malicious actor can easily defraud an election using the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB).

ELECTION DAY

 Reality: Election officials provide writing instruments that are approved for marking ballots to all in-person voters using hand-marked paper ballots.

  Rumor: Poll workers gave specific writing instruments, such as Sharpies, only to specific voters to cause their ballots to be rejected.

 Reality: Voters are protected by state and federal law from threats or intimidation at the polls, including from election observers.

  Rumor: Observers in the polling place are permitted to intimidate voters, campaign, and interfere with voting.

 Reality: Safeguards are in place to protect ballot secrecy.

  Rumor: Someone is claiming to know who I voted for.


 Reality: Polling place lookup sites can experience outages for non-malicious reasons.

  Rumor: If polling place lookup sites experience an outage, election infrastructure must have been compromised.

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Now, it’s true that outside of all this obviously partisan palaver, there is still the totally plausible chance that there was massive voting fraud and coordinated irregularities in ANARCHIST JURISDICTIONS that deprived our greatest, most handsome, smartest, most charismatic, most sexually attractive, BEST FRIEND OF THE GODDAMNED COLORED RACES SINCE “HONEST” FUCKING ABE president of his rightful second term (just as a baseless WITCH HUNT deprived him of a fully effective first term, and the Chinese/Democrat virus HOAX unfairly hurt him too). You can believe unhinged “reality alarmist” traitors at some government agency nobody ever heard of or… or…

Only one final thing I have to say on any of this, to Mr. Trump, the shady AG of Texas (under indictment since 2015), the other dozens of loyal-to-the-death elected Republican Trump zealots who signed on to the Texas AG’s idiotic “lawsuit” delivered to Amy Coney Barrett and her five Federalist Society colleagues on the Supreme Court:

Black, Brown, Urban, “Minority” Votes Matter (and count just like your’s), you racist motherfuckers, whatever you might sincerely, fervently, strongly believe to the contrary.

Got to Love it…

We all want this pandemic to be over. We’re all tired of being afraid of this terrible disease. This is not a partisan issue, nobody wants to die, or see loved ones die, an awful death from this merciless illness.

I went into a pharmacy today and saw this sign on the door.

Immediate unkind thought: Ricky Gervais as prophet

Taiwan, population 24,000,000, flooded with Chinese tourists as COVID-19 hit. Total number of COVID-19 deaths in Taiwan: 7. They did this by quickly quarantining all infected (240,000 or so) and those who had contact with the infected, in their own homes, and bringing them all three meals a day at home while supervising quarantine with 3 random daily calls to government issued cellphones to ensure compliance. No lock down, healthy people wore masks, social distanced and were quickly tested if they felt symptoms, were immediately quarantined if infectious. Head of Taiwan’s pandemic response was a PhD trained at Johns Hopkins. The key to Taiwan’s success was their quick, smart action undertaken as early as possible [1].

It is likely that if our federal response had started along these lines when Mr. Trump told Bob Woodward how terrifying and deadly this airborne disease was, on February 7th, when he knew exactly what kind of plague we were up against, many, many, many, many, many American lives would have been saved. We’ll never know the number, but tens of thousands at minimum.

Not to be negative on the eve of our holiday dedicated to national gratefulness, thank God Operation Warp Speed is speeding along!

Happy Thanksgiving.

[1]

source: Larry Wilmore interview with Fareed Zakaria about his recent Ten Lessons for A Post-Pandemic World.

Meanwhile, in South Dakota

As the president continues to deny that he lost the election, and Mitch McConnell prepares 12 more right-wing judges for lifetime appointments to the federal bench (with 23 more waiting for Lindsey Graham’s committee to rubber stamp them) Democracy Now! reports today:

Utah and North Dakota are the latest states to mandate mask wearing. Meanwhile, in South Dakota, where the COVID-19 death rate is among the worst in the world, Governor Kristi Noem, a close Trump ally, has said she would not enforce a mask mandate even if ordered by future President Joe Biden.

source

Audacious, principled patriotism, Governor Noem.

Another few seconds of diligent internet research gives us the current population of the state that gave 61% of its votes to Mr. Trump– 899,174. I’m sure the governor has the support of the entire state in agreeing that mass COVID-19 infection and death is preferable to allowing other states, or a president other than Donald J. Trump, to tyrannize the loyal citizens of South Dakota.

South Dakota’s population of almost one million, we learn, is 84% “white” [1]. It’s numbing to recall that 58% of “white” men voted for Donald Trump, along with an astounding 55% of “white” women — after Trump’s first four year attempt to Make America Great Again, Lock Her Up, Build that Wall, etc.. It was the large increase in the minority “non-white” vote, voting decisively for Biden, that defeated Donald Trump by a national margin of 5,600,000 votes and counting.

I put “white” in quotes because members of minority ethnic groups, like Jews, Italians, light-skinned Latinos, regarded not long ago as “non-white”, can become white in a racist country by attaining affluence and a measure of political power. This transformation to white is not possible for other groups with darker pigmentation, of course, but that is a function of racism.

Which we do not talk about here. To whose advantage is it to discuss something so ugly in the greatest nation God has ever bestowed His grace upon?

[1]

The “black” population of South Dakota, we learn, has doubled in recent years, to 2%.

Black residents still make up less than 2 percent of South Dakota’s population, putting the state in the bottom 10 in terms of percentage. Mississippi is the highest, with 37 percent of residents identifying themselves as black. Mar 30, 2011

source

Get ’em While They Last!

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Just like America, this deck is made to last!

MADE IN JINA, JINA!

Featured Comment

I get very few comments here on gratuitousblahg, so when I get a good one I like to feature it. Here’s an articulate, well-written note from the other day, commenting on an August 10th post

MelH commented on Benghazi Hearings Continue in effort to disprove the legality of the Mueller Investigation (which totally exonerated Mr. Trump!)

The number of lies written above reflect the problem of the Media being owned by 6 Democrat entities with the result they are acting as the propaganda arm of the Democrat party and you have not been allowed to analyze the truth. Instead you have swallowed the Democrat propaganda and are CALLING it truth. How could you not, when it has been spewed as truth day after day after day. You might twist to other channels and keep hearing the same one-line narrative EVERY day on EVERY channel, always about Orange-Man-Bad. I challenge you to follow this lead and discover what that Orange Man Bad has done for this Country that you probably never heard about on the channels you listen to and watch.; www.magapill.com Relax and enjoy life because what you have been reading is troubling, but full of lies!

Thank you for your comment generously dismissing my post as a pack of lies that were not my fault for believing. Tempting as it is to take a virtual magic pill that will make me as enlightened as you are, I will instead quote noted fellow Jewish wise-ass Hannah Arendt:

 “… the ideal subject of a totalitarian state is the person for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (that is, the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (that is, the standards of thought) no longer exist.” 

Have a blessed day, my friend.

Florida “Republican” State– fine for mail-in voting…

While the president’s army of lawyers sues the state of Nevada over its plan to have universal mail-in voting, Mr. Trump praises “absentee voting” (or “Vote by Mail,” if you prefer) for the elderly white Floridians who put him over the top in that key Electoral College state.  He gave this rationale:

“Whether you call it Vote by Mail or Absentee Voting, in Florida the election system is Safe and Secure, Tried and True, Florida’s Voting system has been cleaned up (we defeated Democrats attempts at change), so in Florida I encourage all to request a Ballot & Vote by Mail! #MAGA”

Florida’s last gubernatorial contest resulted in a Trumpian landslide for the current Republican governor, who won by over 32,000 votes in an election in which more than 8,000,000 votes were cast.  DeSantis’s 0.4% victory was not as impressive as Mr. Trump’s 1.2% margin of victory in Florida, (or as surgically slim as Trump’s Electoral College margin of 78,000 votes in three key states– out of over 120,000,000 votes cast nationwide) but still– nothing to sneeze at.

If you do sneeze at it, do it into your elbow, wearing a mask, please.

And if you’re looking for reasons for optimism, read or listen to this encouraging Op-ed from a few weeks back

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